


Right On Your Mom's Porch

by orphan_account



Category: Mother 2: Gyiyg no Gyakushuu | EarthBound
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Confessions, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-30 17:28:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11468259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: But maybe it’s just due to saving the world at age fucking twelve that made the rest of these adolescent days about as grand as a Dollar Store party popper with the pull string jammed.





	Right On Your Mom's Porch

**Author's Note:**

> I know what you are thinking and I just want to say I do in fact regret it but only a little
> 
>  
> 
> only a little

When you grow older you start to become disappointed with how your life is turning out. It doesn’t need to be a bad life, too, to have that ache; probably due to how romanticized the teenage experience is in the media, with all these movies and shows about how this is your prime, that you’ll be finding your one true love and defying the suffocating hopes of your doting parents, that you’ll make a name for yourself and have some life-changing experience.

But maybe it’s just due to saving the world at age fucking twelve that made the rest of these adolescent days about as grand as a Dollar Store party popper with the pull string jammed.

But they made the most of it, despite these feelings. Paula didn’t feel it too much, having more pride over caring for the next generation at her preschool than over saving the world, but that’s just her thing. She liked kids, loved them to death, and they loved her too. That’s good enough for her to call the world great.

Pu was in and out of all their lives quite quickly, but it wasn’t all that bad; he was apparently travelling abroad on international relations and all this stuff about cultural economics and globalization? He wrote all of it heavily in letters that they all kept together, though Paula was the only one who seemed to find the time to reply to any of them….

It boggles Jeff, though, how everybody had managed to sit complacently back into their lives as if nothing had happened at all. Maybe it was a delusion he made, since he rarely sees anybody regularly besides Ness, but it feels like everybody is just… acting like it never even happened? None of them ever really talked about it when they were together, maybe a passing comment or a joke about how they’re still finding recipes for hamburgers and yo-yos in their pockets, but other than that it’s faded like the newspaper headlines about it.

And out of all the people, it surprised Jeff the most that Ness was the most quiet about it.

There had been attempts to force something out of him --- since Jeff just had a lot of stuff that was still running through his head that he needed to talk about --- but he wouldn’t budge. Surely Paula was someone he could try to confine it to, but it just…. Didn’t feel right. Telling it to her, at least; there was something within his many thoughts on their adventure born from his experience with Ness in Moonside, that he wasn’t fully sure Paula could understand --- and he wasn’t looking for sympathy, for distant understanding. He wanted empathy.

He  _ needed _ it.

But he wouldn’t budge, again. Maybe it was just the topic at hand. Moonside wasn’t exactly the highlight of their adventure, but repressing any emotions or fears you have on a subject does nothing but harm to your mental health ( thanks Tony, for that tidbit), and it was obvious there was something Ness was trying to hide.

He was trying to talk about it, let them open up and yet he’s still shoving him away and pretending not to hear him speak, laughing off his attempts and just making the situation to awkward to speak in anymore.

Jeff was passive in his acts, never able to take an initiative even if it bit him in the ass and pushed him up in the air he’d still be unable to make the move and want to just drop back down. Never an instigator of anything ( hell, he used to have to make Tony raise his hand in class for him when he wanted to ask a question!), he always prayed that the other would start first, which is what made Ness a fucking awful person to try to talk to.

It isn’t until one night, deep in the heavy winter of Onett that could try to compare itself to the freezing temperature drops of Winters in the summer, where he somehow found the courage to make the first move.

They were tossing around in the snow late one night, walking along the shovelled sidewalk and just shooting the shit after a good movie ( Ness loved seeing movies and Paula was never good at staying awake for them, so Jeff was his usual companion), not wanting to really go home yet but not knowing what else to do on such a cold night.

They talk, laugh, Jeff kicking up the soft snow with his boots as Ness tries to cram himself further into his thick jacket, pointing out all the houses along the way that already have their Christmas stuff up; it’s a peaceful moment between them, and it’s when they turn down Ness’ street that Jeff pushes the topic.

“ So, uh,”

He could already hear the fatigue in his voice, “ Jeff,  _ please _ .”

He knew what was coming.

It ends so quickly like that, and the rest of the walk back to Ness’ house is in pure, heavy silence. Jeff doesn’t take his eyes off the sidewalk and Ness seems to have almost forgotten his presence altogether. When they make it to his porch neither want to go in, but neither feel like leaving, so they take a seat on the cold steps, Jeff still taking a very hard look at his boots for the tenth time over.

“ Jeff,” Carefully he raises his gaze from the ground to his friend, bathed in the warming light from his home, shadowed by the curtains of his living room window. It masks half his face in light as the rest dips into the darkness, and it’s all he could focus on before suddenly feeling overwhelmingly uncomfortable and throwing his gaze back down to his feet.

He sighs and looks away too, seemingly giving up on whatever… this was. It’s only when Ness moves out of his field of vision that Jeff realizes that he’s going inside and oh shit he’s missing his chance here he needs to speak up he needs to ----

“ Goodnight, Jeff.”

“ Ness, wait --”

“ I s-”

“ I-I love you…”

He stops just at the door, light flooding over his entirety now. Moments pass of silence, of the door staying open and letting all that hot air out and wow he’s surprised Ness’ mom hasn’t come out to yell at him to close the door yet.

He laughs, “ See you tomorrow, Jeff.”


End file.
